Episode 91 - Alissa Kriteman on Venting and Getting Real

Transcript

Alissa Kriteman: Welcome to Just For Women: Dating, Relationships and Sex. I’m your host Alissa Kriteman. This show is dedicated to providing today’s modern women with useful information they need to make empowered conscious choices. Today on the show I want to talk about conscious authentic communication. And I just want to rant. Have you ever – I’m sure you have all – been in the mood to just rant about things that piss you off? I’m kind of in that mood today, and so I just want to do a little rant about some things around communication, and then in the second segment I’m going to review The Seven Keys To Authentic Communication by Dr. Susan Campbell, which are really great tools for when you find yourself in breakdown situations of communication, error, misguided communications or communications that just downright don’t feel good from other people and what to do about them. And so why this is all coming up for me now is because I’m in a situation where I need to have a conversation with another woman, and we’re really triggered by each other. And I you know anything about me you know that I’m a coach; I coach men, I coach women, I’m in a, you know, really progressive community of people who make this their life, make how having relationships thrive can be the mainstay of anybody’s experience is really what we’re all about. So really going deep on how are we communicating, what are we communicating, are we being curious, are we being judgmental. This is one major area where we like to play, and so this woman and I share a lot of similar friends and we’re involved in a lot of the same things. So because this woman and I have a lot of the same groups in which we’re involved, we came to the conclusion that wow, we feel uncomfortable around each other and it would be good to get clear on what it is that’s having this relationship be irritating. So one of the things we’re going to do is pull withholds, and I talked about withholds, pulling withholds in the last interview or the last offering that I gave last week, because the power of communication is so strong; if you think about it, I mean, it’s how we get to know one another.

Alissa Kriteman: I read something recently that said seven percent of how you communicate is the content and ninety-three percent is in how it’s being delivered. So that’s extraordinary, right, to think about how we communicate to other people. I know for myself, especially when I’m irritated with someone, it’s really hard for me to hide that. And so here’s a great way, if you’re irritated with someone and you’re committed to getting clear with them, that this exercise is really good. So, you know, like I said, we’ll talk about The Seven Keys To Communication on the second segment. So I want to talk about the ramp up to actually communicating with someone and where you can be responsible for yourself before you even talk to someone. And I like to think of it as a gift that I give myself, that my communications with people are so important that I’m expressed, that my heart is expressed, that the deepest part of me is what’s speaking, not the triggered reactionary part. So I’ll review quickly withholds, but then I want to talk about another thing we can do to really take ownership and responsibility for our triggers. So pulling withholds, when I think about talking to this woman, the charge is there. I have judgments about her, I have opinions about me, and she has judgments and opinions about me. So in order to look at these judgments and opinions and not get them all over the other person and think that’s reality and think that is the way the person really is, to really own, “Wow, I’m making this person out to be this way. Could I get curious? I don’t really know who this person is.” So when I find myself in that situation like I am at the moment, I’ve been doing this work where, you know, you can pull withholds with another person – let me just review that quickly. So doing withholds is where you say all your judgments and opinions about the other person to another person and then they say “Thank you.” And what I realized recently is that if I don’t have anybody around and that’s coming up, I can just do it myself. And this really opens a gateway to a lot of different things. What it opens the gateway to is looking at not only our triggers, but the part of ourselves that is experiencing those judgments and opinions. So starting to do the withholds myself, instead of writing them down I’m literally saying them out loud. So it’s also a great way to not gossip about another person, but just really take responsibility. So I’ve been sitting with all of my judgments and opinions about this person and I would say them out loud, and, you know, in a quiet place where I’m by myself so people don’t think I’m crazy. So I sit there and I say, “I think you’re this. I think you’re this. I don’t like when you do that. I don’t like when you do that. It seems to me this.” And what I realized is that it’s almost as though there’s another, there’s a personality part of me saying those things. And so I stopped for a second and my body was tense and my words were getting very articulate and, you know, with a lot of energy, which is how I get when I feel threatened or triggered. And so I noticed that this was almost like a whole person inside of me saying all of this stuff. And I know this might sound a little strange, but it’s not really. Neuro-linguistic programming talks about this, Gestalt therapy talks about this. There’s lots of modalities… There’s another one, what is it called? Something about, voice dialogue. So you’re literally giving voice to those parts of yourself that have been running the show. And I really enjoy this because it helps me see that there is a divine essence in me. There is this loving, caring, kind, generous person part of me that I’ll say is my true essence, and then there’s all kinds of other characters in there who want to take over; some steal my productivity, some have me not speak up in my relationship, some have me get really defensive with women. And so I’m starting to get to know these parts of myself, and it’s actually quite extraordinary. So I wanted to talk about that today, as well as get into some keys and some things that you can do to help yourself when you notice that you’re triggered.

Alissa Kriteman: So again, pulling withholds, that’s a process where you can either do it with another person and say, “You know what, I would just like to vent. I have a lot of anger or energy around this person and I just want to get it out.” That is the best thing to do; get it out with another person, and all they do is say “Thank you”. You blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, you kind of give them a nod, they say “Thank you” and then you just keep going until it’s all gone. So once you’ve allowed yourself to get more in touch with those opinions, judgments and let them go, then you can start to look at, “Hmm, okay. What’s really going on here? I got really triggered.” And any time judgments, opinions, closure, anger, any kind of intense emotions come up, you could say that you’re triggered. Triggers are some of the most important access points to us, identifying what’s going on, who’s running the show in this moment. One great book I love is The Dark Side of The Light Chasers by Debbie Ford. And she does a lot of visualization techniques. She talks a lot about, you know, the shadow part of ourselves. And how the shadow comes out is through these very high emotional reactions to things that we don’t like or people we don’t like or situations we don’t like; anything that we don’t like in other people is a key, is a doorway into looking at what part of ourselves have we not owned? What part of ourselves have we not loved? Do we, are we able to experience the full range of ourselves and accept and love ourselves for that? Or are we walking around in closure, in shame, in fear of owning “Wow, I really feel that way.” And I think it’s important to start to transform what we think about heavy intense emotion and give ourselves the space to have them.

Alissa Kriteman: Another great thing, you know, because I hang around with so many therapists and coaches in my life, whenever I’m going through a challenging or difficult situation, they always say “Have you, have you released that?” And at first I was thinking talking, that they meant talking, did I talk it out. And what I came to realize is that there’s very healthy ways to express your anger and one of them is by allowing yourself to work it out of your body. And one of the things I’ve been doing recently is getting a pillow and hitting it against a wall or my bed. And I know it sounds like, “I couldn’t do that” or “That’s too childish” or something like that, that’s actually the point. What happens is when we’re children and we’re not given the opportunity to express the full range of our anger, we get repressed. Well, suppressed. You know, all that anger, all the emotion gets suppressed in our body. I just feel myself relaxing now; I was starting to get a little intense. So lets just take a deep breath (deep breathing), because what we’re really talking about here is allowing ourselves the freedom to express our full range of emotion. And when we get triggered by people it is okay to express that full range of emotion. So how we can get better at communicating our truth is by owning the full range of our emotions. So like with this woman that I need to talk to in a few days here, we’ll get it sorted out, you know. It’s going to be really great too because I know that she and I are committed to get getting to the other side of it, and even if she wasn’t that would be okay too, because I would be able to learn so much about myself, about where I’m getting triggered just in her presence, and that in and of itself is a huge gift. So allowing yourself the full range of emotion to hit a pillow against the bed or hit a pillow against the wall… One of the things that I like to do is actually say what I’m mad about. I did this the other day and I was, you know, at first I think, you know, we think the anger is about the person we’re angry with, and mine is my fiancé, you know. We’re going through a really trying time and we’re not sure if we’re going to stay together, and that’s really intense. So there’s a lot of anger coming up for me, there’s a lot of sadness coming up for me, and so I’m learning to allow myself to have the full range of emotion because when I was a kid, it wasn’t okay. And when anger isn’t allowed to be expressed it sits there, it starts to be, you know, this kind of boiling cauldron and maybe you’re experiencing that, maybe it’s leaking out, you know, in sideways ways where, you know, you’re kind of lashing out at people here and there. Allowing ourselves to have that full range is really, really important. Not only is it a gift to yourself, it’s a gift to the other people that you’re wanting to communicate with.

Alissa Kriteman: So, yeah, I just wanted to offer those things that really to be an empowered woman there’s so many keys, there’s so many steps in the communication realm. So in the communication realm you can look at what you’re actually saying and then you can look at the work that you do leading up to having extraordinary, authentic, real, grounded conversations with people, and I think that’s something we don’t necessarily think about. You know these keys I’m going to talk about are ways to communicate, but also I really think it’s important to slow down, get grounded and do the practices that allow for us to be more loving to ourselves and then more loving to other people. I think it’s just, I know from myself, habitual; it’s something that I learned in my family that just expressing whatever you’re feeling in the moment is okay and sometimes people aren’t able to hear you when you do that. So having these skills withholds; being able to pull withholds with another person or by yourself, identifying your triggers and going into them, tracking it down, discovering, “Why does that piss me off? What is it about me that I might not be owning, that is so upsetting about this other person?” And then the third step is the parts; “What part of me is actually speaking here? Is it the scared part of me? Is it the protector part of me? Is it the punisher part of me? Am I doing, are my actions in alignment with who I really am or am I being run by some part personality in there that’s just been habituated to unconsciously react and act unbeknownst to me and my consciousness?”

Alissa Kriteman: So those are some three keys that I want to offer before I go into the second segment and talk about some of these fantastic keys from Dr. Susan Campbell. So, we’re going to take a break. I’m Alissa Kriteman, your host of Just For Women: Dating, Relationships and Sex. So listeners, I’d love it if you would listen to the ads that are coming up; they’re sponsors for my show and they help Just For Women exist. So if you would check them out, check out their products - they’re really fantastic – I would appreciate it. Thank you. We’ll be right back.

Alissa Kriteman: Welcome back. I’m your host Alissa Kriteman. You’re listening to Just For Women: Dating, Relationships and Sex. So I’ve been talking about some of the keys to pay attention to if you have some kind of trigger with someone, some kind of communication breakdown with another person that you’re challenged by. And some of the way you can be an empowered woman is to take a look at “What’s going on? What are these triggers about? What part of me is being triggered? What does that part of me have to say? What does that part of me need?” Start to get into relationship with these different parts of ourselves that sabotage us, take us out, you know, get us away from being the most empowered lit up turned on women that we can be. So in the second segment I want to talk about Dr. Susan Campbell’s keys to authentic communication. Her first key is to simply state your feelings about what you are experiencing. And so this was one of my triggers with the woman who I’m going to get complete with – and getting complete is just having a conversation where we both feel heard and loved, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that, you know, there’s going to be this like lifelong friendship, but you never know. The important point is that we’ve said what we needed to say to each other to have the air between us be one of calmness and mutual respect. And so I just know in my dealings with women, whether it’s a facilitator or a coach, it’s very, very challenging for us to talk to other people about what’s going on for us, especially if there’s a lot of emotion involved. And again, it’s always a great key for us to do our own work. So simply stating your feelings about what you’re experiencing. Usually this means not having any sort of reference to the other person, or saying things like “You”. So it’s a lot more powerful to own your experience, saying things like “I feel uncomfortable”, “I feel shut down”, or “I feel more connected to you when…”, right. So a good example would be “I feel shut down when I hear, when I hear no response to something I’ve offered.” Or “I feel more connected to you when I see that smile come across your face.” So again, it’s practicing owning your experience and communicating from there without necessarily getting into “You did this” or “You did that”, but “I feel hurt when I express my needs and they don’t seem to be met” or “I feel closed when I see the garage door open when I come home at night”, things like that. It’s totally your experience, it’s totally find. The second key is to say “I want…” Wow! “I want…” That is my biggest practice, especially in my relationship, because I’ve discovered this nasty little pattern of complaining instead of owning what I really want. And another way to look at this is whenever you have a don’t want, like, “I don’t want it that way” or “I’m frustrated that it’s that way”, beautiful. Perfect opportunity to locate for yourself, well what do you want? “What is it that I want?” And to start to say that. And it’s really vulnerable, you know, it’s really vulnerable to tell somebody “I want…” because there’s no guarantee that that need is going to get met. So when we can just offer it up from our, the deepest place in our heart where we’re not demanding, it’s really hard for people to give us things when we’re demanding them, and yeah, I guess I’m pretty much learning the hard way about that because… Especially with men; men do not want demands. Men want to feel as though they have every opportunity to give you what you want or not and they’re going to be acknowledged for it and appreciated for it, and when a man gives us something out of a demand it doesn’t have that fullness and you can even here it, like, ugh, he gives us, does something for us because we’re demanding it. Does that even feel good to us? You know, then there’s the question, like, “Well did he even want to do it?” So really getting into our wants and saying them in a way, again, that ninety-three percent the way we say something is so important. Man, these are keys that I never learned growing up as a young woman, how to relate with men or how to relate with people, which is why it’s so important to talk about them now, and not only talk about them, but hear it from several different people this stuff actually works. So here’s my offering in how you can be more empowered in your communications.

Alissa Kriteman: Well that brings us to the end of the show. Thank you so much for listening to Just For Women. Tune in next week for authentic communication keys 3 through 7. And if you’ve been struggling with fear and anxiety, please check out my new product at masterfultechniques.com. It’s a series of techniques that you need to know to help you transform your life and have fear and anxiety be a thing of the past. So again, that’s masterfultechniques.com. Go there now and enter promo code ‘women’ and you’ll get a hundred dollars off the original price. I’m your host Alissa Kriteman, always expanding your choices here on Just For Women: Dating, Relationships and Sex.